writer, editor, modernist, and geek

Current Thoughts On My Novel

I’ve recently started what I think of as the committed phase of writing: I’ve gotten enough of the framework in place that now I’m setting aside a little time each day to work on my current novel. I’m in it, now, and I will see it through to the end, which I couldn’t have said for certain 6 months ago. The end may not be completion/publication though – I’ve written other novels that I trunked, and absolutely should have. They were writing exercises: the epic fantasy novel I wrote in high school, the couple of zombie novels I wrote during stints of NaNoWriMo, the novel I wrote last year that is basically modern YA fanfiction of a movie I loved from childhood. I’m glad I wrote them, because I learned from everything, but aside from the last one (which, maybe) they’re the writer’s equivalent of homework. You want to be a great writer? You practice, practice, practice, and file most of it away, because it isn’t a finished product worth showing people, it’s an exercise.

If I could teach every writer in the world one thing, it would be that.

The fake working title of my current novel is An Inheritance of Footsteps, so I’ll be referring to it from here on out as FOOTSTEPS. (I always give my writing a title that I fully expect to change once the project is finished and I have a better idea of what key moment or feeling I want the title to reference.) An Inheritance of Footsteps is the second title this novel has had; the first fit my original idea which focused more on the post-apocalyptic nature of the book, but as it’s developed, it’s become more about journeys, the world we’re leaving to our children and the one their great-grandchildren will inherit. It’s about climate change and government control and societal evolution.

I’m not keeping the current title because it’s ridiculously pompous. It’s the sort of title that you can put together from Electric Lit’s “How to Name Your Big Important Novel” infographic. In fact, I used that post to help me create it. It makes me laugh a little whenever I think too much on it, and I think that’s important. I want to avoid letting my ego get into the way of what I’m writing. I don’t want to keep anything because oh my precious words none can be deletedor can’t kill that character, they’re secretly me!

For the record, none of the characters in this book are secretly (or overtly) me, but I’ve seen authors get so attached to the version of themselves, or someone else, that they wrote into their story – the better version, or the version that gets the love interest, or defeats the enemies – that they can’t see how to edit that character when they need to. I do care about my characters and I am invested in this story, right now. When I’m writing is the time to fall in love and want to tell everything about these people’s lives. Later, when I’m editing, I’ll have to step back and be ready to give up what I originally wanted for them. I’ll have to focus only on what’s the best way to tell this story… and that may mean drastically changing a character, part of the plot, or even cutting things entirely.

We’ll see.

There’s a lot of world building in this book, and that’s what’s taken up most of my brain where it comes to creating it. I’ve written hundreds of scenes in my head over the last several months, turning them around and looking at them over and over. I’ve thought about how it would look as a movie, what the ramifications of certain words or actions are for the characters. For example: I realized that I need one of the main characters to have a completely different reaction to the introduction of the MC than I’d originally jotted down. If she reacts negatively in any way, she loses control over what happens next, basically reacting to her emotions, being carried along by it, instead of choosing for herself to be involved. If she accepts the MC’s presence and more than that, makes herself a part of what’s going on, chooses to be there for what happens next, then she’s got some control over the situation, and has a much better chance of ending up where she wants to be. I want that character to be strong, even when she’s struggling, and to be the kind of gracious and generous that you learn to be when you don’t have a choice, rather than some trope of “the other woman”. So, I have to write her that way.